Ebb and Flow (oh won't you lay me down)
by ConcerningConstellations
Summary: "But she is certain, quite suddenly, that if she is faced with another nightmare of Jack in pieces— of Lena broken and long-gone, Ana laying there, cold and bleeding from under one eyebrow, of Jesse's head cradled in her hands as his lifeless eyes look up a her, all empty and endless, asking her "why, why, why did you let me go?"— she will not make it till sunrise."


Summary:

_"You wear guilt_  
_Like shackles on your feet_  
_Like a halo in reverse."_  
\- Depeche mode, _Halo_

She should be sleeping— she knows, she knows, she knows. The orange and empty pill bottle by her bedside screams this at her, and so does the quarter-full bottle of wine tucked into the lowest drawer of her desk, and so do her hands, which shake and shiver and strain, once tools, now symptoms of a sickness.

Sickness. That's what this is.

(She knows, she knows, she knows).

* * *

It's one of those nights.

Angela strolls soundlessly through the halls of Gibraltar, the white lab coat hanging from her shoulders gently brushing the floor as she steps, her hair messy and half-up in a ponytail that leaves much to be desired. She is barefoot and brutally tired— tired to the point where she can't bring her eyes to focus on the files she should probably be overlooking; to the point where she will begin to write something down— something scrawled in a dying pen, half English, half German— and pause in the middle of the sentence, not sure how she intended it to finish.

She should be sleeping— she knows, she knows, she knows. The orange and empty pill bottle by her bedside screams this at her, and so does the quarter-full bottle of wine tucked into the lowest drawer of her desk, and so do her hands, which shake and shiver and strain, once tools, now symptoms of a sickness.

Sickness. That's what this is.

_(She knows, she knows, she knows)._

So she walks, winds her way silently down half-dark hallways, thin arms crossed over her chest, ignoring the time her watch tells her. When she reaches the kitchen she convinces herself to pause, put away the open bag of Doritos that Hana left out from a couple hours back, make sure the stove was off and the fridge was properly closed. The teas that Ana and Fareeha are so fond of sit on the counter, and for a moment, Angela is tempted to try and brew herself some.

She doesn't. It's silly, childish even, but she has reserved this presumption that the tea was not meant for anyone else besides the Amaris— that to take some would sort of be like inviting one's self to dinner, invading on the only scrap of sacredness the mother and daughter get to share together. As a family.

Angela wonders if she's going mad, if the solid week without entering a proper REM cycle was finally getting to her, dragging her down like a thousand grabbing hands; wonders why the silence around her seemed louder than Football Fridays in the presence of Reinhardt and Torbjorn. Her head hurts with the back-end of a migraine, or perhaps the beginning of one. She can't remember. She doesn't try.

She moves on. Pads past the windows, glances out into the thick of the nighttime, dragging the tips of her fingers along the planes of glass. It'll leave smudges, she knows. If she remembers to, she'll come back and wipe it clean, like it never happened, like she was never here.

When she reaches the part of the base where most of the team slept, her legs stop. She convinces herself they will start again when and if she wants them to and thinks no more of it, leaning heavily against a wall and inhaling deeply, breathing in the scent of the living. There is an army of smells that she recognizes immediately: Jack's shampoo, Lena's perfume, the faint but notable waft of smoke and post-explosions from the room Jamison and Mako shared.

Many of them shared rooms, mostly due to the fact that there was only so much space for so many agents— Hana, Lena, and Lucio piled on bunkbeds separated by gaming monitors and stereos, posters of British bands and pictures of Rio in the summertime; Jesse, Hanzo, and Zaryanova settled into separate corners of a dormitory painted in shades of simple grey, windows that tended to stay open when the nights were cool and dry enough; Mei and Satya splitting their room straight down the middle, the only two agents who understood how much the other needed their space, their organization, their own twisted version of perfection; Genji and Zenyatta, though not technically needing sleep, meditating together at night, a room full of candlelight, the smell of lavender and oil.

Angela had a room, technically. It connected to her lab and her clinic. It was a white, cold place, a place she went to brush her teeth and contemplate sleep, change clothes and shower, when she remembered to. She shared it with no one. _Seniority_, Jack grinned at her when she asked why, like he had done her a favor, like it should be a relief to have the empty space all to herself.

She can hear them breathe. Through the doors and the drywall she can hear the drowned-out exhales of her teammates, the snoring from the room Reinhardt shared with Torbjorn, the tell-tale sound of Lena talking through her dreams. Sliding her back down the surface of the wall, she brings her legs up to her chest and leans back, lets the sound of the sleeping take up every square inch of her attention.

They're all resting. Safe.

(—safesafesafesafe_safe—)_

All breathing and living and sleeping through the night, their lungs filling with oxygen and not blood, their eyes closed but not forever, their bodies warm and healthy and not white and rotting on some battlefield where she didn't get to them in time, where she let the dirt cover them, let the earth eat them up, swallow them whole—

"Angela?"

There is a delicate hand on her shoulder, a body blocking out the dim light, and the smell of soap and flowers, light and airy, reaching out and pulling the doctor from her daydreams. She looks up, forces her eyes to focus. Amélie is kneeling before her.

"Are you alright?" she asks, brows creased gently, noting the bags under the woman eyes— heavier than ever, a shade too dark to be healthy.

Angela starts with a flinch, although nothing about Amélie's interaction came close to harsh or calloused. The hand on her shoulder retracts immediately.

"I— yes— hello." The words were scattered, like she was struggling to bring herself back, like she didn't know where to start. Amélie takes on a thoughtful look, leaning back on her heels.

"You are on the floor," she says, a not-quite-question

There is flush across Angela's nose, on the tips of her ears.

"Yes," she says quietly, makes to stand only to slide back down the wall. Her knees shake, her fingers loose their feeling. She can feel her eyes blur and focus and then blur again, the light dying out and then coming back, the breath entering and leaving her lungs in a way that makes her ribs creak like the foundation of an old house. Her head throbs anew, angry at her movement.

_Tired_ wasn't accurate. She would need to drag out some of the larger words in her vernacular, something long and frightening, something with enough syllables to fit the size of what she was feeling.

Amélie slowly reaches towards her, makes to help her up. Idly, Angela lets herself be guided off the floor, finding herself leaning heavily on the woman, like her body was simply through with it, determined to shut down with or without her permission. Her knees buckle, her neck struggling to support her skull.

(She watches as the world tilts dangerously, but it's alright— it's_ fine_— because they're still _there_, because she can still hear them breathe).

Worry flared up inside of the sniper. She feels the straining muscles behind Angela's fair skin, the trembling through her arms and spine, the sort of tightness that is always on the edge of threatening to snap. She readjusts her grip to better support her, noting how the woman seemed to weigh nothing, her steps slow and stumbling.

"You need to sleep, _chère_." It's not scolding, not sharp, but it still makes Angela feel like a child.

"I know."

"What are you doing out here? You're freezing."

She didn't feel it. Didn't feel the ground under her feet, the air in her chest. All she knew was that she was being taken back the way she had come, towards her lab, her clinic, her room, and the thought of those white walls made her want to be sick.

"Wait," she said, managing to get her legs to stop, "Wait, it's fine. I'm fine."

Amélie scoffed, gaze dismissive, trying to coax her forward. "Don't make me get Ana."

"Wait," Angela says again, and this time she finds it within herself to tear her arm away from the bluish hands. She takes a step away from her, away from the direction of her own bed, where the dreams lingered, the _nightmares_, the claws that would wrap around her wrists and ankles and throat and hold her down as the scenes played, on and on, flashing pictures on the back of her sewn-shut eyelids. She won't return to them, not tonight, no matter how heavy her head was getting. She's not brave enough to face them again, all alone, caged in the walls.

"_Wait_," she begs, stumbles to find her footing, grabbing onto the back of a chair. She blinks hard enough to see spots, breathes between clenched teeth, tries to find balance between the tremors. "I'm not— I can't right now. Not right now, please."

Pathetic, she knows, knows, _knows_. A child scared of the dark, throwing a fit. But she is certain, quite suddenly, that if she is faced with another nightmare of Jack in pieces— of Lena broken and long-gone, Ana laying there, cold and bleeding from under one eyebrow, of Jesse's head cradled in her hands as his lifeless eyes look up a her, all empty and endless, asking her why, why, _why did you let me go?_— she will not make it till sunrise.

Amélie looks at her— at _all_ of her; the long, once-graceful fingers gripping the top of the chair, knuckles white, the cords in her neck straining as she struggles to keep it in, hair falling in front of her azure eyes, shoulders shaking— and she understands. Perhaps better than anyone else in this God-forsaken base, she understands what it's like to be trapped in her own head.

She understands, and she is suddenly compelled to move heaven and earth to fix it.

Her hands gently cover Angela's, removing them from the chair and guiding her in the opposite direction. The woman follows, whispering something under her breath, something that sounds like a question in foggy German. Amélie hushes her quietly, tells her it's alright, that they can go somewhere else. She leans on her, heavier than before, eyes closing for a long while before cracking open once more, fighting the urge to go limp.

The den is warm and dry and smells of playing cards and a leaky AC. Amélie sets the doctor down on the closest couch, watches as she seems to crumple into herself, as if the goal was to become as small as possible. She grabs a throw blanket and helps wrap it around Angela, smoothing out the creases. Consciously, she notes the way the woman refuses to lean back into the cushions, not allowing herself to relax.

"Is this better?" Amélie asks, sitting next to her.

"No." It's is cold and honest and heavy, like lead, the smell of red wine and regret. "Let me go back."

"Where?"

"I need to _hear_ them."

"Hear who? You're not making sense, _chère."_

Angela shakes her head, her cheek pressing into Amélie's shoulder, struggling to get the words out. "I need to _hear_ them, so I can know they're alright, that they don't need me to— I see them so much, so much blood, all under my nails, and it won't come off, Amélie, it won't come _off."_

Amélie frowns, feels her chest shrink and then explode. It's worse than she thought. "Angela, everyone's okay right now. No one is… look, see?" She grabs the doctor's hand, brings it up to the dim light spilling in from the hallway. "No blood. All clean."

Angela ignores her, sways. "Don't make me. Please, I can't— I'm not— I'll die, I'm going to die if I see it again, I'm going to— there's— they never _make it_, and it's my _fault_, and I know, I know,_ I—"_

It's much, much worse.

Amélie smooths the blanket down once more, runs her hands over the doctor's thin shoulders. "Angela, you're panicking. Okay? Slow down. Feel me breathe." She grabs the doctor's too-thin wrist, presses it to her own collar.

She's not used to being the warmer one in an embrace, but the fingers on her chest are all but ice. "In and out, right with with me."

They stay like that for a few minutes, minutes that feel like hours, full of strained gasping and long pauses in between. Angela presses her palm harder into Amélie's heartbeat, bows her head against the woman's chest. She inhales with catching and coughing bursts of breath, eyes closed, taking in the feeling of the arms around her, blocking out the world.

"I'm sorry, I'm_ sorry…" _She's not sure what she's saying, but whatever it is, she believes it.

"Don't. After what you dealt with when I… I got _back_, it would be cruel for me to let you alone. I wish you had come to me sooner— to any of us."

She shakes her head, pale hair hiding her face. Her hand pulls away from Amélie's collar and she crosses her arms across her chest, fingers gripping at the sheet atop her shoulders, like without them there to keep her together, she would surely fall apart. "No, I _can't,_ because then they'd see me like that, like _this_, and they'll think I'm— I'm some child, and… and they'll… I can't be that one to do that, I'm not allowed, it's no good."

Amélie frowns, brows furrowed. She's never seen the doctor like this, never seen her so small, so open and raw. It sat with her wrong, made her want to dropkick someone into the next dimension. "You think you are the only one to go through these things, Angela? You know you aren't. It's okay to— to have to deal with this."

The words seem to bounce right off the woman, not registering at all. "I'm supposed to _save the world_, to save these people, but I can't, I _can't_, Amélie, it's too much to carry. I try— I try until I shake, but they die anyways, right there, right in my arms."

"No one's died, Angela. We're all here."

"Right in_ my arms…"_

Amélie's had enough. She will not allow this to go on, watch as someone she cared about— someone who had spent night after night next to her, holding her hand as she dreamt of _them_, of the voice in her head screaming_ kill, kill, kill_— spiral and fade away, self-deprecating into herself like a blackhole, hungry and unsatisfied until everything, even the light, was gone.

She opens her mouth to say something but is interrupted by the soft, subtle sound of something gliding towards them, the nearly-silent swishing of an engine, joints of metal and wires humming as a figure makes its way down into the den.

Zenyatta's long, robotic fingers were folded elegantly in the center of his lap, his form gently bobbing closer, the nine lights on his head glowing faintly through the dark like little stars. The fist-sized orbs rotate slowly around the metal tubes of his neck, chiming pleasantly.

Angela, as if ashamed of the state she was found in, tries to stifle the dry sobs, pressing her forehead tighter into the woman's chest, whitish hair falling out of its ponytail and into her face. Amélie runs a hand through the strands, stares up at the omnic with narrowed eyes.

"Good evening, Ms. Lacroix. Doctor Ziegler." He dips his head in greeting, pausing a decent distance away from where the two of them were settled on the couch. His automated voice was breezy and light, as if Angela wasn't shaking at the shoulders, as if Amélie wasn't glaring crosshairs in his direction. Neither of them responded. "I sensed a disturbance," he continued, head tilting slightly in question.

"A stellar observation," Amélie growled, stinging sarcasm dripping from every syllable.

Zenyatta ignored the verbal battery. "I do not mean to intrude, but in my meditation, I was faced with a strong sense of unease. I was compelled to follow it here." The omnic hovered closer, the whirling sound of his motor growing a little louder and then lapsing back to borderline silent, over and over, a noise that makes Angela think of ocean tides ebbing and flowing.

She opens her mouth to say something. It stutters into another breathy exhale.

(Zenyatta wasn't in her night terrors often. He didn't need her kind of healing, and omnics didn't bleed).

"Leave." Amélie doesn't care if it's rude— Zenyatta wasn't welcome here. Zenyatta couldn't understand this.

"I can help."

From his shoulder, he pulls out an orb and lets it hover above one spindly mechanical hand. It's the one that glows golden, the one that, even from here, makes the stiffness in her limbs lessen.

Lowering himself gently, he asks, "Would that be alright, doctor?"

Angela forces her lips into a harsh line, clenches her jaw so hard it hurts. She isn't sure of what, exactly, is taking place here— this role-reversal she found herself stuck in. She catches herself falling often into infinitesimal spells of blankness, where she'll emerge forgetting where she was and how she got there; where all she can think is half-formed fragments that start with _I feel, I feel, I feel,_ and _the blood won't wash out_, and _I tried_ and _I can't_ and, _please, just a little longer_.

The electronic voice rings out again, grabs her away from it all. "Doctor?"

She can't remember what he wants, but she nods anyway.

Immediately, he sends the harmony orb to settle half a foot over her head, and immediately, her breath comes easier.

It's the opposite of an IV. Instead of filling her veins with cold and cutting and the clinical sort of clean, it's sunlight draining from the tippity-top of her head to where her toes curl, liquid warmth that makes her shoulders unlock and her chest decompress. The images flashing behind her eyelids— the spattered scarlets and carmine, the glassy gazes and broken bones— lose some of their vividness, like a picture worn down to muted colors, fuzzier than before. When she goes to pull the air into her lungs, it's not in a hurried, shallow panic, as if worried that breath would be her last— no, it's long, and deep, and makes her eyelids grow even heavier.

Amélie feels as the form buried under her chin loosens. Not all the way, not even close, but it's enough to make relief flood into her chest.

Zenyatta sits still for a moment, as if gathering the words, and then says, "Your spirit is very tired, Angela."

She doesn't remember him every calling her by that name— not even here, where the bullets couldn't reach, where sometimes he would catch her still in her casuals, messy hair and coffee-stained teeth. It was always a polite nod by way of greeting, a warm _Good morning, doctor_ or _A pleasant evening, Ms. Ziegler_. But now, there was something about how he said her name, something about the way _Angela_ sounded in his smooth, tuned voice; the delicate allusion it harbored. It was as if he was referring to the parts of her she could not see— the guilt. The regret.

(She looks down because she doesn't have the determination to look him in the eye— did omnics even _have_ eyes?— and because suddenly, Amélie had become very comfortable. Her hands come into view, flickering between bare and bloodstained, alternating every time she blinked. She wants to keep her eyes closed, block them out, but she knows that worse things laid in wait there for her, demons lurking in the darkness of unkind dreams).

"Tired," she agreed quietly after a moment of wavering, like she had just come to terms with it all, like she was ready to wave the white flag once she found the strength. It was a whisper of a sound, her hair once more falling into her face.

(God, _yes_, she was _tired. _Tired of fighting it, tired of _trying_. Tired, tired, tired—)

Zenyatta's hand is not as cold as she imagined it to be. On the contrary, when he wraps it gently around one of her knobby shoulders. it radiates a certain kind of warmth— the sort she's only found on the bottom side of her laptop when she's running five algorithms at once. They've never touched, her and him. She's never even realized.

"Would it help to not sleep alone?"

This time, she doesn't hesitate.

* * *

Genji looks up when they enter, his meditation interrupted.

The room was dark and still, the only sound that of snoring from the neighboring dormitories and the flickering of candlelight. Two small beds pressed together in the corner of the space, discarded neatly, seemingly untouched since their arrival. Rain splattered softly against the single window.

Amélie followed Zenyatta over the threshold, the door sliding shut as she crossed, her orangish eyes regarding the space briefly. Angela had not argued when she found the arms hooked under her knees and back, the taller woman carrying her as if she weighed nothing. She doubted her motor functions were still reliable, at this point.

The cyborg was on his feet immediately, milky eyes wide with worry. "What's happened? Angela?"

The words are sticky, and when she tries to talk, she finds herself slipping between languages, savoring every ounce of steadiness the orb above her granted. "S'fine, I am only… _Es tut mir leid, es ist schwer,_ you know? _Es ist schwer, _and…"

Amélie took over from there, Angela's voice dying out like a lightbulb left on for too long. "She needs to be with people tonight. She's staying. _We're_ staying."

Genji looks down, takes in the purply, puffy skin under the doctor's lidded eyes, the pale fatigue clinging to every exhale. He gets the picture quickly, and Amélie is glad, because it was brushing up against four a.m. and she was in no mood to argue about this.

"You're staying," he concedes, brushing Angela's hand with his own, resting the tips of her soft, deft fingers against his callused ones.

Amélie has very rarely seen him without his visor. The most she got was glances between cracked doors, brief scans of his barely-visible features on late-night extractions, where the carrier that picked them up was dark and silent and sleepy, where he felt the shadows were thick enough to hide it all away. The scarred, rough planes of his face, by all means, should have made him hard to look at— made him seem displaced, outcasted, undone.

To Amélie, though, he didn't. Right then, split brows creased and stressed, the cooling fans built into his machinery kicking up a notch to combat what she assumed was a wave of worry, he looked more human than ever.

"Don't worry," he told the doctor, who finally— _finally_— was letting her eyes close and stay shut. "The demons will not come here. They know me— they know better."

* * *

She doesn't remember falling asleep.

She remembers the covers being pulled to her chin, the pillow pressing against her cheek and the feeling of the mattress below her shifting as Amélie climbed in. The two of them didn't touch, but she was close enough to feel the heat gathering between them, close enough to hear the air escape the woman's parted lips as she settled in, letting her body go heavy with sleep.

She remembers the sound of Genji returning to his mat, robotic knees smoothly crossing as he lowered himself once more to meditate. Remembers the way he breathed, slow and methodical, measured every time. She counts: Six seconds in, eight seconds out, pause. Again. Again. Again. She prays he'll never stop.

She even remembers the sound of Zenyatta settling into his corner, metal joints whirling as he bows his head, leans his arms on his knees and touches his thumb to his promise finger. The orbs around his neck— save the golden one that hovered above her head, up and down, up and down— rung softly against one another, like wind-chimes, like notes to a song she can't-quite remember but swore she's heard before. It makes her feel warm. It makes her feel a lot of things, honestly, but her vocabulary is lacking right now, and the sleep is pulling at her hard, the tide threatening to pull her back out to sea— an ocean of uncertainty— and she knows it's time.

Before she goes, and with no small amount of effort, she cracks an eye open, looks for her hands, looks to see if they're still smudged crimson. But they're buried beneath the blankets, tangled between the sheets, curled around nothing. She cannot see them. For now, they are far, far, far away.

Amélie has started to snore. She listens to it, to the rain, the rhythm of the breathing, takes in the scent of candle wax and clean covers, laundry detergent and lavender oils. It is nothing like her room— the walls are not white, the blinds are wide open. She lays there, feels the closeness, soaks in it for as long as she can manage. In those last, dwindling thoughts, between burst of sticky static, of the water reaching her nose, she realizes that she is not afraid.

Then she stops, allows the current to take her out.

* * *

_thank you for reading. if you enjoyed, feel free to drop me a comment, as feedback is appreciated and consumed whole for sustenance._

_cheers._


End file.
